Someone just wrote a really triggering thing about how they realized they were gay after therapy and im so scared and numb and i dont think i can live with this any longer and i dont wanna be gay i think idek anymore

I feel awful that I keep coming on here whenever I’m down bad but oh my gosh OCD is the most painful shit that I have EVER experienced in my life and I have a physical chronic illness…. I hate to say it but I hate living right now it’s too painful… im crying as I type to the point where my stomach is hurting, I have pretty severe ocd I do have generalized anxiety and idk if that is connected with ocd but because of that I have most of the subtypes REAL EVENT OCD,POCD,ZOCD,ROCD,SOCD HARM OCD, you name it and I got it!!! a lot of also why I have have those theme is trauma growing up and involving those things^ as of right now i’m 25 and a women with the most loving boyfriend in the entire world before my ocd hit me I NEVER questioned my love and care and attraction with the love of my life I always knew I was going to marry and be with this person the rest of my life! Now with ocd it confuses me soooo much and now I think I’m gay and didn’t realize or indenial and listen I get it “don’t look for reassurance!” “It’s not the thing ocd is attacking that is the problem ocd is the actual problem!” Here’s the thing with that if I’m in a relationship and I’m gay that would mean I would have to leave that said relationship and to say that “oh yeah that stuff happens and you’ll move on” is absolutely devastating to me this is THE LOVE OF MY LIFE and your telling me that iv been lying to myself this whole time or that I didn’t realize?!?!? And that sexuality can change (even though some say it can’t google says otherwise and some people have said it can’t idek anymore) and all this other BULLSHIT I can’t take it WHY?!?! why does this have to happen why can’t I just be with my love the rest of my life?!? and yes before anyone says anything I have been attracted to girls more so when I was younger watching lesbian porn liking the body’s and fantazing them sexually it stopped when I got older but I still don’t get disgusted with women who are pretty it just makes me uncomfortable because I’m with the love of my life and before I remember talking to my partner and discussing certain childhood things I experienced and we discussed that we both could be a little bi and for certain I’m (demi sexual so I don’t even really care about looks) and I truly didn’t care!! NOW I do care even with being bi because again I don’t like thinking about anyone else but my partner but I do also know my parents are homophobic and I do think about if I am gay they wouldn’t be okay with that and I also dont want to deal with that so now I sound like in indenial right?!???? I didn’t even care about labels before my ocd it just didn’t matter but now it’s effected my sex life and it’s hard for me to enjoy sex with being so confused I’m so confused I googled everything can you still have sexual fantasies with same gender but still be straight? Can you fantasize about same gender or imagine marrying them all of it !!! And non of that disgusts me it just makes me uncomfortable AGIAN only bc I just love the partner I’m with right now!!! I’m so fucking confused do I have to leave my partner and accept that I’m gay is that going to happen in the future if I get better with ocd and find out it’s been true all along?!???

As a lesbian with SO-OCD, I feel so helpless. It's truly exhausting because no one I know understands what I'm going through. The first response is always, "You're just confused" or "You don't have to know yet." But that's not the issue, I do know. I just never see any lesbians with SO-OCD so I feel so invalidated. These thoughts flood my brain constantly, forcing me to analyze my reactions to every man I see. I feel trapped in an endless cycle of "testing" myself, trying to prove that I don't like them. But my brain fights back, telling me I do want to love a man, making it feel real even though don't want it. It's terrifying. At this point, it's hard to even hold onto my identity as a lesbian because I'm so overwhelmed. I don't know if this is what real attraction is supposed to feel like, and that fear eats away at me. The truth is, when I think about being with a man, all I feel is disgust and fear-but my brain twists that into doubt. I hate it. I'm at the point where I'm scared I'm going to have to accept something I don't want because I don't know if this will ever go away. I miss who I was before all this.

trigger warning!!!!!! I’m really scared right now. I’ve been reading Elle Warren’s articles about her experience with HOCD/SO-OCD, and it feels so similar to mine. She went through the same fears of being a lesbian, felt distressed by her attraction to women, and spent hours ruminating, Googling, and analyzing her feelings. She even experienced groinal responses and revisited old memories, just like I do. Eventually, she had a moment of realization in college when she flirted with a girl, and everything clicked. She now identifies as a lesbian. I’m terrified that the same thing will happen to me. I thought the OCD fears were supposed to never be true and that HOCD thoughts are usually just compulsions that don’t end up being real. But reading her story, it’s like I’m seeing my own experience mirrored. What if it clicks for me, just like it did for her? What if I realize that I am a lesbian? Elle’s story makes me so scared. I thought my feelings of attraction to women were just OCD-driven, and now I’m questioning everything. I thought I was straight, but now, reading her journey, I’m wondering: could my OCD fears actually be real? Elle’s experience was very similar to mine: • She got distressed when she thought she might like women, not relieved. • She spent a lot of time ruminating, Googling, analyzing, and comparing. • Her attraction to women only became intense when her OCD flared up. • She said things like, “I feel peace when I believe I’m straight.” • She had already been diagnosed with OCD and had a history of this pattern. After years of fear and distress, Elle had a moment of calm and realized that it was true. I’m scared that this could happen to me too. Will I have a similar moment of acceptance, where everything clicks and I realize I’m gay? Or will I come to accept that this is all OCD, and that I’m straight, with the possibility that I’m not? I also keep thinking back to when my OCD lessened the first time. Did I go back to men because I wasn’t actually attracted to women, or was it just because the grip of the OCD had loosened? Elle also talked about the shame associated with non-heterosexuality. She mentioned that, like many of us, she had internalized stigma around being gay, and that it made her fear the possibility of being non-heterosexual. I can relate to this so much—growing up, I never saw it as an option to be anything other than straight, and now it’s hard to shake that fear and shame. Elle mentioned that she found reassurance in seeing other people with HOCD who worried that their fears would come true, but eventually realized they were just OCD thoughts. That idea is comforting, but also a little scary, because what if that moment of realization happens for me too? What if I finally accept that I am a lesbian? Or, what if I’m just struggling with OCD and eventually realize I’m straight? I just don’t know. The scariest part is that, just like Elle, I feel like I don’t have any obvious signs. She had no idea she was a lesbian until one day, everything clicked. She was 21, just like me when my OCD fears really flared up, and she had a breakthrough moment in Denver when she made friends with lesbians. That hasn’t happened for me yet, and it’s terrifying to think that it could happen in the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m really scared about where this will lead.